The cruel stony immobility of the unfortunate living creature who lay there before me, seemed to communicate itself to me. I felt as if I too were losing vitality.

"Loukeria," I began at last, "think over the suggestion I am going to make. Would you like me to arrange for your being removed to a hospital, -- a good hospital in town. Who knows whether it may not be possible to cure you? At all events you would not be left alone."

Loukeria's eyebrows twitched a little.

"Oh no, Barin!" she said in an uneasy whisper. "Don't send me to a hospital; don't take me from where I am. I should only suffer all the more there. How can I be cured? There was a doctor came here one day and wanted to examine me. I begged him not to. 'For Christ's sake, do not disturb me!' I said. What was the use? He began turning me over from one side to another, bending my arms and legs, and kneading them into dough, saying the while: 'I do this for the sake of science. I'm a scientific man, you see, and employed by Government. And you mustn't go putting difficulties in my way,' said he, 'for I've had a decoration given me for what I've done, and it's for the sake of such stupids as you that I labor.' He went on worriting me ever so long, then he told me the name of my complaint -- such a learned one -- and then he left me. But for a whole week afterward, there wasn't a bone in me that didn't ache.

"You said that I am alone, always alone. No, not always. People come here sometimes. I am a quiet body, in no one's way. The village girls come in here and gossip; pilgrim women turn in here on their wanderings, and tell stories about Jerusalem, and Kief, and the Holy Cities. But I'm not afraid of being alone; I even prefer being so. No, Barin, don't disturb me, don't send me to a hospital. Thank you all the same. You mean it kindly, but please let me be as I am."

"As you like, as you like, Loukeria. You see I thought it would do you good --"

"I know it was meant for my good, Barin. But who is there who can be sure he is right in helping another? Who can enter into another's heart? Let every one help himself! -- you'd hardly believe me, but sometimes when I lie here all alone, it's exactly as if there wasn't another living creature in the whole world beside myself. Just I alive and no one else! And then it seems to me as if a shadow came over me from on high, and I become rapt in meditation. It's wonderful!"

"And what do you meditate about at such times, Loukeria?"

"That's impossible to say, Barin; there's no explaining it. Besides, I forget all about it afterward. It comes just like a cloud.